"As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of the opportunity provided to serve self-interest when Al Gore created the internet; and we should also thank Mark Zuckerburg and Jack Dorsey for creating Facebook and Twitter out of the kindness of their big hearts and not the thinness of their small wallets."

-Ben Franklin, Autobiography (1742)

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Abigail Adams Founding of Colonialpolitan/Cosmopolitan Magazine.

"Remember ladies, be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands, but put yourself in his hands instead. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could, it is up to us to distract them from the realities of life."

-Abigail Adams,Cosmo's"237 Ways to Please Your Founding Father", 1769

Today,Helen Gurley Brownis praised as the founder of the ever-so-scandalousCosmopolitanmagazine. Though Brown spear-headed the project of takingCosmoto the masses, she was hardly the first woman in history to push the boundaries of female sexuality with a written publication. If you want to know the real origins of today's most popular woman's magazine, you'll have to look much further back in history than the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s - that was nothing compared to 1764, the year Abigail and John started theAddam'sAdam's Family…

Abby and John were essentially the hot, young power couple of the Founding Father crew. They had it all: a charming lot of youngsters (including John Quincy, 6th President of the United States), a beautiful home in the 'burbs, well-paying jobs, and to top it all off, a fairytale marriage that made Martha Jefferson green with envy ("Tom never looks at me the way [John] looks at Abby", fromSecond to Sally, an autobiography). And what was the secret to such a perfect relationship? Well,Cosmohas been telling us for years and will keep telling us as long as we continue to impulsively grab that $3.95 issue in the check-out line. That's right, ladies, you've been reading the words of Abigail Adams all this time. Don't let the editors ofCosmotell you that some trendy love doctor came up with "82 New Ways To Spice Up Your Love Life " or the "Which Sex In The City Character Are You?" Quiz. Rather, those are the wise words of Abigail Adams, passed down through the centuries. And who wrote the "Advice from Guys" column? You guessed it: John Adams himself, with the help of GDubs, TJ, J.Mad, and Monbroeski, of course.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Adams was well ahead of her times when she startedColonialpolitan. She knew the conservatism of her day would not allow for such a magazine to be mass produced. Thus, she drafted one issue of the magazine that she shared with her fellow Founding Mothers. On her death bed, she charged her eldest daughter "Nabby" with passing down her tried and true relationship secrets to the next generation. Little did she know that her secrets would be reworded and retitled thousands of times over to create every issue ofCosmopolitan.